Ever since I got duped into a phishing scam I've been really interested in all the different ways scammers try to get our money. I thought it might be helpful to post our own experiences with scams because they come in so many different forms. This way, we can share our misery as well as warn others!

The most obvious scam was when I got an email from what I thought was my bank saying there was unusual activity. I ended up typing in a ton of personal info so I could "log in". Turns out it wasn't really my bank. After looking it up online, I learned that anytime something like this happens, YOU CALL your bank or go to the bank page and log into your bank account yourself. Never go through the email.

Another scam I experienced recently was while renting a car from Enterprise. I didn't realize that at the counter they'll do anything to jack up the price from what was online. Most people are insured through their regular car insurance. Or you can buy a 3rd party rental insurance. But when you get to the counter, they'll insist you buy THEIR insurance, which pretty much doubles or triples the price you thought you were going to have.

I used to work for Enterpise...that company is SO SHADY. They try to tell you that if you don't have insurance, by law you MUST buy theirs. False. The liability insurance on the car (which is what you must have by law) is on the CAR not the DRIVER. (I can't speak for any other state than CA)

So even if you don't have insurance, you do not have to purchase it. It is already insured. Big scam.

(In some cases, it is a good idea to buy the damage waiver, if you really don't have insurance or are renting a really expensive car. but you dont HAVE to)

I could not do it. I could not lie to people. I could sell like crazy, but I could not lie. It really ruined for me what could have been a very lucrative career in sales.

So my scam is also Enterprise. Recent college grads DO NOT BE SUCKERED INTO WORKING THERE RIGHT OUT OF COLLEGE. Recruiters will scoop you up, promising you this great management trainee program where you make all this great money, awesome people blah blah. What you do is rent cars to people, WASH CARS in business suits, 12 hour days with 'mandatory' happy hours almost every day.

You are instructed to straight up LIE to people to get the sale. Not just the insurance thing either.

Here is a common occurance. Happens EVERY DAY. Say you are at a car repair shop. You need a rental car. The repair shop says that they will rent a car for you for the day since it will take awhile. Ok cool. They call Enterprise: "You have a small car for my customer?" (the only car in the lot is an expensive SUV) "oh sure, we have plenty of cars". You go to pick them up. Get to enterprise. "oh gosh sorry, all we have is this SUV left. The repair place will only pay for a small car...you will have to pay the upgrade for $40/day". Don't want to do that? then they will drive you to another Enterprise location. Same deal. You wait in the lobby for 2 hours. Finally someone drives you to ANOTHER enterprise. Same deal. Finally you say fork this, ill just PAY for whatever is availible, since my whole day is wasted, get me out of here! Then they try to sell you insurance you don't need. Then when you try to return the car to the first place, you CANT you have to go to the far away one, and they make you wait to find someone to take you back to the repair place, since it is so far away. Now you have spent money you don't want, and missed a lot of work/school/time running around from place to place.

Now not only does this suck for the customer, but it also sucks for (some of) the employees. I felt TERRIBLE doing this to people. I tried to refuse, and would get reprimanded for it. You are right out of college, it is your first job. You dont want to fork it up, so you drink the Kool Aid, and practice unethical selling techniques.

I have a million stories about scams and shadiness at that company. Ugh. They are terrible to their customers, and terrible to their employees. Please college grads, Do Not Work For Enterprise.

This will probably seem obvious to most, but if you're looking at apartment ads online (Craigslist, Gumtree etc.) and somebody is adamant you put down a deposit or "viewing fee" before you've seen the place, it's probably a scam. A friend of mine (who is usually pretty intelligent but has lapses in common sense) almost got duped in this way, because he saw a flat on Gumtree at a GREAT price in a GREAT neighborhood with GREAT photos and after several e-mails back and forth with the "landlord" (who just happened to be "unavailable to show the place but has several other interested parties"), he was worried that he would lose the place if he didn't put down a deposit right away. Luckily for him he showed me the emails before sending his bank info and asked me something like "Do you think this is a good price for this apartment?" He was extremely embarrassed, but then we had some fun leading on the scammer with weird questions (i.e. "Do you think there is enough room to keep 18 cats in this flat? Is there adequate storage for a moderately-sized collection of broken oars?" etc.)

Ugh, I was having a really hard time find rental listings that were not a scam this last time we moved. The first time I got an "I am out of the country and can't show the place" email I wasn't sure it was a scam (but had no intention of putting down money on a place I had not seen), but I proceeded to get a few more of the exact same email. It was incredibly disheartening.

Things I noticed they had in common: - The reply was a form letter (It said "Dear Renter" instead of replying to me by name)- Contact by email only (most real landlords prefer to be contacted by phone so they know you are legit)- Email addresses that looked like personal yahoo accounts. Full first and last names. Usually real people hide their email address and have you contact them through the site.- And, ALWAYS asking for an upfront payment on something they conveniently cannot show.

_________________Gwyneth Paltrow: "I'm superstitious. Whenever I start a new movie I kill a hobo with a hammer."

I haven't been scammed but there are some things that are borderline:1) Got an email from 'paypal' and went as far as clicked on the link before I realized I was being stupid. Unfortunately, a lot of these sites are filled with malware that will install on your computer without putting any info in.

2) Bought some stuff off the internet from a small company. Shortly after, there were some false charges on my credit card. Often internet attacks are done on businesses in order to harvest their credit card databases and smaller companies have fewer resources so I'm guessing their database had been harvested. From now on, I prefer to use paypal, especially for small companies as paypal has a lot of resources to protect their data.

_________________You are all a disgrace to vegans. Go f*ck yourselves, especially linanil.

My friend's dad got a call "from Microsoft" once, and the guy proceeded to tell him that his computer was sending out viruses, and he needed to follow their instructions to stop it from doing that. Half an hour later (still on the phone with the guy) he had installed some program that they'd told him to download and Phone Scammer had control of his computer remotely and was doing a bunch of stuff, still telling him he was "fixing" things. Luckily at that point my friend's dad got suspicious and called my husband on his cell phone to find out if this was normal. Hubby got him to shut down his computer and unplug everything, then had to go over there and wipe the hard drive to get rid of the shiitake that Phone Scammer had put on there. Friend's dad was super embarrassed that he had actually believed that MICROSOFT would be calling him directly. Luckily he had fairly recent backups and they don't seem to have gotten any banking info or anything, so no real harm done.

Funnily enough, my 75-year-old grandfather got the same call a few weeks later, and when Phone Scammer said "sir, we've identified that your computer is sending out viruses" my grandpa replied, "oh yes, I know, I set it up to do that." Grandpa then kept Phone Scammer on the line for over 15 minutes, insisting over and over that he was happy his computer was distributing viruses and that he really didn't want to fix it. My grandpa is awesome.

_________________She eats a paleo diet, just like the whiskey-and-bacon-eating australopithecans before her. - annak

I've never been scammed in real life, but I got scammed while cashiering at Whole Foods. A guy on a cell phone came through my line and bought a box of cereal with a $100 bill (real). Cashiers hate people on cell phones, so I didn't pay much attention to him. After I rung him up and was getting his change, he asked me, "Oh, how much? Let me take the hundred back and give you something smaller." I gave him back his bill, he rummaged in his wallet for a while, and then said, "Oh, just take it out of $100." I gave him back $97, not thinking that he had the $100 already. I realized it on the next transaction, freaked out, told my supervisor, and luckily didn't get fired because I caught it and was an otherwise awesome cashier.

We'd always been trained to watch for flim-flam artists who try to actively confuse you when you give back change, but I never anticipated a scammer who used his appearance as a disinterested crasshole on his phone to scam an irritated cashier. I guess it was a good lesson to learn, but it still makes me so angry! I could have lost my job if I had less sympathetic bosses.

I've never been scammed in everyday life, but I got scammed while cashiering at Whole Foods. A guy on a cell phone came through my line and bought a box of cereal with a $100 bill (real). Cashiers hate people on cell phones, so I didn't pay much attention to him. After I rung him up and was getting his change, he asked me, "Oh, how much? Let me take the hundred back and give you something smaller." I gave him back his bill, he rummaged in his wallet for a while, and then said, "Oh, just take it out of $100." I gave him back $97, not thinking that he had the $100 already. I realized it on the next transaction, freaked out, told my supervisor, and luckily didn't get fired because I caught it and was an otherwise awesome cashier.

We'd always been trained to watch for flim-flam artists who try to actively confuse you when you give back change, but I never anticipated a scammer who used his appearance as a disinterested crasshole on his phone to scam an irritated cashier. I guess it was a good lesson to learn, but it still makes me so angry! I could have lost my job if I had less sympathetic bosses.

A lot of people fall for the Nigerian-style scams. At one of my former jobs, a French bank, a lady called my boss asking him how to send funds to Nigeria and she explained to him why she was doing it. When my boss tried to explain to her that it was a really bad idea, she got very upset and told him it was none of his business how she chose to spend her money. My boss told her to contact the Nigerian guy and ask him how to wire the funds, since he did not want any part in that.

I used to get calls myself, from people demanding that huge amounts of money MUST be wired into their accounts, as they have an agreement with "someone". Yeah, sure, keep on waiting for 3 billion dollars to hit your account.

Please always check your bank statements very carefully, to make sure nothing funny is going on there. Sometimes they don't even take money from you, they just take over your account and use it to move money around for laundering purposes. Of course, on the other side, there is the guy that works for a very large multi-nations organization based in New York where they are supposed to be promoting world peace (and is currently holding their yearly get together), who paid a parking ticket with a check where he messed up his own signature and told us to reject his check when presented for payment claiming the signature was forged (by him).

it wasn't a close call, but i posted an ad on craigslist for an unused wedding dress that i had gotten from a consignment shop before i decided on another dress from a different consignment shop.

every reply was scammy. one i had a conversation with (maybe 4 replies) before i realised it was a scam. bleh. so weird. why did scammers want to bother with a wedding dress? (i still have the dress BTW. i might end up bringing it back to one of those consignment shops... or i might cut it up for crafts.)

Please always check your bank statements very carefully, to make sure nothing funny is going on there. Sometimes they don't even take money from you, they just take over your account and use it to move money around for laundering purposes. Of course, on the other side, there is the guy that works for a very large multi-nations organization based in New York where they are supposed to be promoting world peace (and is currently holding their yearly get together), who paid a parking ticket with a check where he messed up his own signature and told us to reject his check when presented for payment claiming the signature was forged (by him).

I almost forgot, I had an unused Paypal account (I hadn't touched it in at least 6 years, possibly 8) that was used to move money around. One day it had $1000 in it that had been moved from other people's accounts. I ended up emailing the people saying that their money was stolen and that it wasn't me. I tried telling Paypal but it was actually frustrating to do so. I was trying to say 'hey someone stole these people's money and put it into my account' but I never got a good resolution from Paypal themselves.

_________________You are all a disgrace to vegans. Go f*ck yourselves, especially linanil.

I've never been scammed in real life, but I got scammed while cashiering at Whole Foods. A guy on a cell phone came through my line and bought a box of cereal with a $100 bill (real). Cashiers hate people on cell phones, so I didn't pay much attention to him. After I rung him up and was getting his change, he asked me, "Oh, how much? Let me take the hundred back and give you something smaller." I gave him back his bill, he rummaged in his wallet for a while, and then said, "Oh, just take it out of $100." I gave him back $97, not thinking that he had the $100 already. I realized it on the next transaction, freaked out, told my supervisor, and luckily didn't get fired because I caught it and was an otherwise awesome cashier.

We'd always been trained to watch for flim-flam artists who try to actively confuse you when you give back change, but I never anticipated a scammer who used his appearance as a disinterested crasshole on his phone to scam an irritated cashier. I guess it was a good lesson to learn, but it still makes me so angry! I could have lost my job if I had less sympathetic bosses.

This has me wondering if people were trying to scam me or if that guy just legit forgot he took the $100 back. Because several times while working as a cashier something similar happened where I had to remind the customer that they hadn't actually given me the money.

I've never been scammed in real life, but I got scammed while cashiering at Whole Foods. A guy on a cell phone came through my line and bought a box of cereal with a $100 bill (real). Cashiers hate people on cell phones, so I didn't pay much attention to him. After I rung him up and was getting his change, he asked me, "Oh, how much? Let me take the hundred back and give you something smaller." I gave him back his bill, he rummaged in his wallet for a while, and then said, "Oh, just take it out of $100." I gave him back $97, not thinking that he had the $100 already. I realized it on the next transaction, freaked out, told my supervisor, and luckily didn't get fired because I caught it and was an otherwise awesome cashier.

We'd always been trained to watch for flim-flam artists who try to actively confuse you when you give back change, but I never anticipated a scammer who used his appearance as a disinterested crasshole on his phone to scam an irritated cashier. I guess it was a good lesson to learn, but it still makes me so angry! I could have lost my job if I had less sympathetic bosses.

This has me wondering if people were trying to scam me or if that guy just legit forgot he took the $100 back. Because several times while working as a cashier something similar happened where I had to remind the customer that they hadn't actually given me the money.

I feel like if he legitimately forgot he'd be pretty likely to go back to the store and explain the mistake, when it involved that much money. I mean, you'd probably notice an extra $97 in your wallet pretty fast and might be freaked out, if it was a real mistake.

_________________"If I were M. de la Viandeviande, I would now write a thirteen page post about how you have to have free will to be vegan, but modern science does not suggest any evidence for free will, therefore it is impossible to be vegan." -mumbles

I've never been scammed in real life, but I got scammed while cashiering at Whole Foods. A guy on a cell phone came through my line and bought a box of cereal with a $100 bill (real). Cashiers hate people on cell phones, so I didn't pay much attention to him. After I rung him up and was getting his change, he asked me, "Oh, how much? Let me take the hundred back and give you something smaller." I gave him back his bill, he rummaged in his wallet for a while, and then said, "Oh, just take it out of $100." I gave him back $97, not thinking that he had the $100 already. I realized it on the next transaction, freaked out, told my supervisor, and luckily didn't get fired because I caught it and was an otherwise awesome cashier.

We'd always been trained to watch for flim-flam artists who try to actively confuse you when you give back change, but I never anticipated a scammer who used his appearance as a disinterested crasshole on his phone to scam an irritated cashier. I guess it was a good lesson to learn, but it still makes me so angry! I could have lost my job if I had less sympathetic bosses.

This has me wondering if people were trying to scam me or if that guy just legit forgot he took the $100 back. Because several times while working as a cashier something similar happened where I had to remind the customer that they hadn't actually given me the money.

I feel like if he legitimately forgot he'd be pretty likely to go back to the store and explain the mistake, when it involved that much money. I mean, you'd probably notice an extra $97 in your wallet pretty fast and might be freaked out, if it was a real mistake.

I'm 100% sure he was a scammer, especially with four more years of cashiering under my belt after that (some of them in Chicago; I am no longer surprised by anything). And looking back on it, who buys a single box of kids' cereal with a $100 bill? The whole thing was fishy and I was too busy being annoyed and bisque-y to recognize it. Another good lesson. :)

I've never been scammed in real life, but I got scammed while cashiering at Whole Foods. A guy on a cell phone came through my line and bought a box of cereal with a $100 bill (real). Cashiers hate people on cell phones, so I didn't pay much attention to him. After I rung him up and was getting his change, he asked me, "Oh, how much? Let me take the hundred back and give you something smaller." I gave him back his bill, he rummaged in his wallet for a while, and then said, "Oh, just take it out of $100." I gave him back $97, not thinking that he had the $100 already. I realized it on the next transaction, freaked out, told my supervisor, and luckily didn't get fired because I caught it and was an otherwise awesome cashier.

We'd always been trained to watch for flim-flam artists who try to actively confuse you when you give back change, but I never anticipated a scammer who used his appearance as a disinterested crasshole on his phone to scam an irritated cashier. I guess it was a good lesson to learn, but it still makes me so angry! I could have lost my job if I had less sympathetic bosses.

This has me wondering if people were trying to scam me or if that guy just legit forgot he took the $100 back. Because several times while working as a cashier something similar happened where I had to remind the customer that they hadn't actually given me the money.

I feel like if he legitimately forgot he'd be pretty likely to go back to the store and explain the mistake, when it involved that much money. I mean, you'd probably notice an extra $97 in your wallet pretty fast and might be freaked out, if it was a real mistake.

Yeah, and that's a well-known scam. Fee, it's likely that a few of the times you had to remind people they hadn't given you money they were actually trying to scam you. Because that's the out - if the cashier notices they can easily put on the "oh, how silly of me!" surprise reaction and just complete the purchase normally. It's way less risky than shoplifting, in that way.

_________________She eats a paleo diet, just like the whiskey-and-bacon-eating australopithecans before her. - annak

2) Bought some stuff off the internet from a small company. Shortly after, there were some false charges on my credit card. Often internet attacks are done on businesses in order to harvest their credit card databases and smaller companies have fewer resources so I'm guessing their database had been harvested. From now on, I prefer to use paypal, especially for small companies as paypal has a lot of resources to protect their data.

Yep. I actually had one of my credit card numbers stolen just a couple of days ago. Thankfully the thief only used it to buy internet porn and not something huge so I don't have some ridiculously huge charge pending on my card until they remove it... yay? I don't know where the thief got the card number from, but it's a card I used to use for online shopping a lot so I'm guessing that's what happened. Nowadays I try to use Paypal whenever possible, or otherwise only use my card number on large, trusted sites. Some banks also offer a "virtual credit card number" service, or if you don't have a credit card there's always the option of getting a prepaid debit too.

I had one sort of similar to mandycoot's when I was cashiering at a record store in college. Guy handed me 5 twenties and asked for a hundred dollar bill (it was the holidays so that didn't really seem like a strange request.) I took the twenties and gave him the only hundred in my drawer. A little slight of hand that I never saw and he tosses a ten down on the counter and says, "Look again, honey, you only gave me a ten." So I took the ten and gave him his twenties back. I knew as soon as he was out the door that I'd been scammed and I'd be $90 short when I balanced my till, but it was too late of course.

Something I encountered in a formal retail job: These guys kept coming into the shop repeatedly, buying high $$$ items and paying with multiple Visa gift cards. They came in frequently, and always used multiple $100 gift cards every single time. Turns out they were using stolen credit cards to buy the gift cards, activating them but not registering them to their own names, and by the time the fraud victim noticed the charge on their statements the gift cards would have already been purchased and used. Hooray.

This is more of a general thing than a specific scam, but it's a good idea to be wary of how much information you give out online when job hunting. Obviously you need to send your name, phone number etc. out into the world but if you ever get a "recruiter" asking you for info like your date of birth, social security number etc. run away! People post bogus ads on Craigslist and the like to farm information.

I had a customer purchase $15 worth of merchandise with a $100 bill...and I counted her change out directly on the counter and then again into her hand, out loud, because it was so much change. I was glad I did because when she came back in 5 minutes later and tried to say I'd shorted her $20 I was 100% certain I had given her ALL of her change. I said, "No ma'am, I'm certain that I gave you the correct amount of change." I reiterated that twice more when she argued. She asked where my manager was and I pointed him out...she never talked to him, she walked out the door instead.

I also had a shoplifter once who had his whole family involved, young kids included. That was very sad.

I recently got a weird call on my cell, it was a guy with a foreign accent asking for me, from my cell company's 1800 number. I hung up. My fiancé got the same call (the account is in my name) and he hung up too. We both realized we got the same call from the Sprint number (my cell provider), asking for me by name, and sounding suspicious. I tried to use the internet on my phone, and it didn't work. Red flag! I called Sprint right away (from a land line).

Apparently, just by answering this call, someone in another country hijacked my phone! Instant freakout. I was on the phone with Sprint for an hour until they fixed it. Then I had to change ALL my passwords and info on every app I had on my phone that had one. What a pain that was.

The guy from the phone company said this happens from time to time...it's not just people trying to make free phone calls, but the calls go from phone...to phone...to phone...making them untraceable. In other words, people were using MY account to do some kind of shady, untraceable stuff.

My friend was so excited that she got a job for a "travel agency" after nearly 2 years of looking and landing crappy dead end jobs. Her first assignment was this:

Quote:

Dear __________,How are you?Please find the attached Transaction Order. Incoming money transfer, which you are supposed to process, will cometo you as a check. You will receive this check via USPS.

The steps of procedure:1. Please see Transaction Order carefully.2. Waiting for Incoming money transfer (You will receive check by USPS).3. As soon as You receive Incoming money transfer (receive the check) complete the Transaction Order: A - Cash Incoming money transfer (Cash check). B - Take 5 percent commission from sum for Yourself. C - With 95 percent from the sum go to the MoneyGram or Western Union Agent and transfer money to the Recipient specified in Transaction Order (Attention! Withhold transaction fee according to the Contract terms and send the remaining amount. Take transaction fee from our part 95 percent and send the rest of the money.)4 . After sending the money, you will need to email the report on the completed transaction having thefollowing information:- Full name of the manager you sent the funds to- Amount transferred- Reference number (8-digit number Money Gram gave you OR 10-digit number, that western union's teller will give you after the money transfer.)

_________________You know, I was sure she said ducks but drunks makes more sense. Do ducks pee? I don't know. -vixki

I ordered concert tickets online and got my debit card stolen. They got about 200 bucks before I noticed, but I got all of it back from the bank.

My big one is credit consolidation companies. They claim to take all of your debt and condense it down by making deals with your creditors. So instead of paying the credit card companies you pay them one payment and they distribute it for you. They claim to get interest free deals and get your balances cut in half. Really all they do is take your money and let you go bankrupt! Dont do this, just work with your creditors and dont ignore them. They would rather get 5 dollars over nothing. Look into balance transfers and try to pay off one card at a time.